Western Australia

Bankwest, building stronger conveyancing relationships

Successful digital innovation requires all parties working together to achieve the best possible result. Understanding that, Bankwest has set about building stronger relationships across the network.

At a recent industry dinner, David Morrissey, Executive Manager Digital Operations Strategy Western Australia at CBA Group invited some practitioners to an informal round-table and tour of Bankwest and CBA’s PEXA processing centre in Perth.

For David, not only was it relationship building it was also an opportunity to get practitioner feedback too.

“Our use of PEXA for standalone and refinance transactions is well advanced and is now our normal way of doing business. The big opportunity for us is to work with practitioners to further embed PEXA into the property transfer segment. We saw this visit as a great chance to get first hand feedback on our current performance and to share some of our experiences thus far”.

After attending the round-table, both parties gained a greater understanding of the other. Practitioners advised of their desire to receive timely input of available funds and Bankwest explained they manage deals within set timeframes according to their workflow and that they don’t want multiple conversations - starting a conversation to ask if the bank has done something is counterproductive.

“The experience reinforced to me that most delays in settlement, where Bankwest and CBA are concerned, are before the dealing gets to the team we deal with. It has given me a new understanding of their processes and I believe this will enable me to adjust my dealings with the team to ensure smoother settlements”.

Practitioners also got to tour the Bankwest and CBA PEXA processing centre and meet with frontline staff. After various practitioner-lender communications, it was the perfect opportunity to put a face to a name and continue rapport building. Interestingly, bank staff found these honest conversations with practitioners engaging and beneficial to their role.

“There are a lot of people still finding their feet in this segment so the more we communicate and understand each other’s role the easier it will be for us to deliver a seamless buying and selling experience for our customers,” said David.

Leanne Hyde, Principal Conveyancing HQ, was very pleased she attended.

“The day was beneficial. It’s interesting to learn the bank prefers to collect debt only and that sending multiple conversations creates an extra work-burden for the bank – it’s also pleasing to know the banks monitor the conversation tool. I now have a better understanding of how the bank fit into our overall PEXA settlement experience”.

“A big thank you to Dave and the Bankwest and CBA PEXA teams for giving us an insight into their procedures,” added Leanne.